‘Poor Charlie,’ Bobby said with a sigh. ‘He had interviews with two practices last month, but as soon as they saw his stick, his hands shaking and his arm burnt, they didn’t want to know.’
‘That makes me so cross,’ Lilian said, scowling. ‘Why should men injured for their country lose because of it? We owe them a huge debt.’
‘I expect the vets who run these practices are just thinking about their businesses,’ Bobby said. ‘They don’t owe Charlie a living, war or not. If he can’t do the work, why should they give him a job?’
‘Doesn’t that make you angry?’
‘I’ve been angry about so many things in this war, I’ve none left to spare for ordinary people just trying to make the best of things.’ Bobby sighed. ‘I do hate how being out of work makes Charlie feel though. Cooking and cleaning like a housewife while I’m out trying to earn enough to support us. It humiliates him.’
‘My Tony acts aggrieved if he has to make his own cup of tea,’ Lil said with a dry smile. ‘Men, honestly. It’d do the lot of them good to learn one end of a kettle from the other.’
‘It’s more than that. Charlie’s never been stuffy about me working, and he lived alone as a bachelor so he’s no stranger to chores. It’s more… I suppose that he feels it’s his job to take care of me and Marmaduke, and if he can’t, he feels useless.’
‘That’s understandable.’
‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’ Bobby said dreamily.
‘What?’
‘How different they all are. Men. Charlie’s experience is the mirror of Dad’s in some ways, and there’s Reg and Captain Parry – all scarred by war, physically and in their minds. Charlie and Dad both struggle with feelings of uselessness when they can’t do what they feel is their duty as men. Yet they each deal with it in their own way.’
‘What’s Charlie’s way?’ Lilian flashed her twin a worried look. ‘He doesn’t try to cope… like Dad did?’
‘He doesn’t knock back spirits, no,’ Bobby told her. ‘But he hates to lean on anyone, even me. Especially now when he thinks I’m fragile.’
‘But you two are all right, aren’t you? I thought you and Charlie were signed, sealed and delivered when it came to living happily ever after.’
Bobby smiled. ‘Yes, we’re all right in that sense. I never expected the things that happened to Charlie – to both of us – when we were in the RAF would just fade into the past once we were back on Civvy Street. We need to take each day as it comes, I suppose, and count our blessings whenever we feel inclined to grouse.’
‘Do you miss the WAAF?’
They had reached Moorside now. Bobby discovered on glancing at her watch that she was a few minutes late for work. Mary Atherton was on the doorstep beating out a rug, and she called to Bobby that Reg was waiting to speak to her and Tony in the parlour. Bobby was grateful to be spared answering her sister’s question as she hurried into the farmhouse.
Chapter 2
‘Good afternoon,’ Reg observed dryly when Bobby walked into the parlour. The editor was seated behind his desk with Tony on the other side, looking like a naughty schoolboy summoned to the headmaster.
Bobby wondered what Reg wanted to speak to them about. Nothing bad, she hoped. Running a rural magazine in these days of paper shortages and wartime uncertainty was a fraught business. The little mag seemed to be doing well – enough for Reg to increase their salaries to two pounds a week – but still, Bobby thought he must struggle to afford two staff reporters.
Two pounds wasn’t a large salary – quite the reverse. Bobby and Tony had earned a pound more a week when they had worked together on theBradford Courier, and even that was a modest wage. Nevertheless, eighty shillings a week was still a lot for Reg to be paying out.
When Bobby had left for the WAAF in spring, her brother-in-law had been taken on asThe Tyke’s only staff reporter in her place. She hadn’t expected her old job back when she left the Air Force six months later – indeed, she had assured Reg she wouldn’t want it if it would mean laying off Tony. It had knocked her for six when Reg had said he wanted her back onThe Tyke, working alongside her oldCouriercolleague. Bobby believed Reg might actually have missed her, although it was the last thing the gruff Yorkshireman would ever admit.
She was glad to be back, but her old job came with new challenges, not least of which was the lack of space. With three workers and their desks crammed into the parlour, there was precious little space for anything else – in fact, the room had now abandoned any pretence of being a parlour at all. It lookedlike what it was – an office – and the Atherton family were forced to retreat to the kitchen for their living space.
Mary bore it stoically, but Bobby knew it was devastating for the houseproud Daleswoman to have no room in which to rest and entertain. The space was foggy with tobacco now as Tony chain-smoked his way through the day, and every weekend Mary diligently scrubbed the ceiling above his desk to remove a persistent yellow ring.
Tony himself was the other challenge. His work had improved since he and Bobby last worked together, but as at theCourier, he was prone to belligerence if he felt his female colleague was being favoured over him. As a man, he saw himself as naturally Bobby’s superior at work. It rankled whenever he was reminded that they were, in fact, equals.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Bobby said in answer to Reg’s sarcastic ‘good afternoon’. ‘I’ll make it up before I leave.’
‘Aye, see you do. No, don’t start work,’ Reg said, seeing she was heading for her desk. ‘I want to talk to the pair of you.’
Bobby pulled her chair over to sit beside Tony. She flashed her fellow reporter a questioning look, but Tony just shrugged.
She felt her stomach lurch with anxiety, and winced at a movement from the baby in response. Was she going to be sacked? Could Reg have discovered her secret? He was a kind man underneath his sternness, and Bobby knew he both respected and liked her. Nevertheless, he had traditional ideas about women in the workplace. It had been difficult enough to persuade him to keep her on once she became a wife. As a mother, he’d never accept she ought to be anywhere but at home.
Tony looked worried as well. Bobby wondered if he, too, was fearful his head was on the block. Feckless and workshy for most of his career, Tony had earned a reputation back in Bradford that had rendered him virtually unemployable there. This job,low paid as it was, had been a lifeline to him when he had been an out-of-work new husband. It had allowed him to move his pregnant wife nearer to her family, and provided them with a grace-and-favour home in the form of Cow House Cottage. He would be in an even worse position if he lost his place than Bobby.
